Doesn't the word, "shortened", in the following three lines, imply a reduction in the number of the days or the years?

 

Psalms 89:45 The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.

 

Psalms 102:23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

 

Proverbs 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.

 

So why wouldn't Jesus imply the same in Matthew, as he did in Psalms and Proverbs, above?

 

Matthew 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

 

Why would Jesus suddenly change the plain meaning of shortening the days, from reducing the number of days, to some kind of new science?

Do people think that Jesus was explaining a "speeding up of the earth's rotation", when people didn't even believe that back then?

Or that he was explaining that time would be made to "seem to go faster" to the people in the tribulation, when people didn't think that way back then?

So why can't the words, "days should be shortened", in Matthew 24:22, mean a reduction of the number of the days?

Do some people maybe think that since Jesus' word, in other places, mentioned 1260 days, or 42 months, or 3½ years, so that it can never be changed by him?

What happened with Jonah and Nineveh?

 

Jonah 3:1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

  2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

  3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

  4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

 

The LORD told Jonah to preach what he bid him, and Jonah preached, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

It does not say that Jonah preached that if they repented, that the LORD wouldn't overthrow Nineveh after the forty days.

However, on their own, Nineveh chose to repent and turn from their evil way:

 

Jonah 3:9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

  10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

 

The LORD changed the outcome, and Nineveh was not overthrown after the forty days.

Could the LORD possibly, in the time of the tribulation, be so moved by the repentance and prayers of his people, that he changes the outcome?

So, that they will not then have to possibly endure the full 3½ years of the time of Jacob's trouble, the great tribulation?